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Strange problems with a Dell Dimension L866r

jsullivan33403

Posted 22 August 2008 - 01:24 PM

I have a most unusual double problem with a Dell Dimension L866r. The two problems are as follows:

(1) On startup it stops and says :

“A: Drive Error
Press <del> to resume”

When ‘Delete’ is pressed to continue. goes to,

“Invalid Boot Diskett
Insert Boot diskett in A:”

I removed the hard drive and it still did the same. Then, I disconnected the “A” drive and reset CMOS to boot on CDROM only, but it still did the same. I then switched RAM memory, but it still did the same.

Any ideas?

(2) I took the Hard Drive and put it in a working machine, and it would start up, but then go right back to boot up. I checked the HD with Winternals ERD Commander. It said no corrupt files found. Then I did a ‘restore’ using Winternals ERC Commander, but this did not help.

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The Skeptic

Posted 23 August 2008 - 02:28 PM

The Skeptic

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Enter the BIOS and in what is usually the first part of the menu you will see your drives. If you don't need A:, which is a floppy disk drive, mark it as "none" or "not available" or whatever option your BIOS need to disregard the floppy disk drive. You may also look in more advanced options to FDC (floppy disk controller) and disable it.

The Skeptic

Posted 24 August 2008 - 01:33 PM

The Skeptic

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Clear the BIOS by doing this:Disconnect the power cable from the back of the computer. Open the side cover and carefully take out the cmos battery (looks like a silvery button). Keep it out for about 15 minutes. Reinstall and reboot. You will probably get a checksome error or some other message. If you do, enter BIOS and set time and date, save the new values and let the computer boot. Most desktops will boot into BIOS by clicking Delete or F2 keys immediately after switching on. There are computers in which other keys have to be used to enter BIOS (Setup). You can find the correct key when looking at the screen right after pressing the start button. If you don't, press the Pause/Break key immediately after startup to freeze the first screen. Now you should be able to see what keys tp press.

I removed the hard drive and it still did the same. Then, I disconnected the “A” drive and reset CMOS to boot on CDROM only, but it still did the same. I then switched RAM memory, but it still did the same.

Any ideas?>>>

Thanks an awful lot.

Do you have any ideas on my problem #2 on this computer; to wit,

<<<(2) I took the Hard Drive and put it in a working machine, and it would start up, but then go right back to boot up. I checked the HD with Winternals ERD Commander. It said no corrupt files found. Then I did a ‘restore’ using Winternals ERC Commander, but this did not help.

The Admiral

Posted 28 August 2008 - 10:24 PM

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Okay, go ahead and turn the computer on, then start tapping <F8>, which should bring up a slightly different menu. One of the options is going to be "Disable Automatic Restart on System Failure", select that and press Enter. The sequence, in all, should be this:

The Admiral

Posted 30 August 2008 - 06:50 AM

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Have you tried booting into safe mode yet? If you can, check for the presence of a C:\WINDOWS\Minidump folder, and see if it has a lot of files in it. Also check the Event Log (Start > Control Panel > Administrative Programs > Event Log) for any events with Event ID: 1001, Source: Save Dump. The description will be something like "The computer has rebooted from a bugcheck. The bugcheck was : 0xc000021a (0xe1270188, 0x00000001, 0x00000000, 0x00000000). Microsoft Windows NT (v15.1381). A dump was saved in: C:\WINNT\MEMORY.DMP."

jsullivan33403

Posted 01 September 2008 - 03:44 PM

jsullivan33403

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Hi Admiral

Tried going to ‘Safe Mode’ was able to go there one time but search was not working correctly so could NOT find C:\winnt\memory.dmp.

To try and find it, put install disk in and went to recovery console and managed to get a c:\windows prompt. At that point did a dir and looked for c:\windows\winnt\memory.dmp but found only c:\windows\winnt.bmp (size 48,680) and c:\windows\winnt256.bmp (size 48,680).

Then tried again and got a STOP: 0x00000050 (0x83314470, 0x00000001, 0x8082ap41, 0400000000)

Then tried to do a repair install as recorremended by Admin.

[1 st] try. Started to do a repair install (not console repair) but came to a stop.

The Skeptic

Posted 01 September 2008 - 11:47 PM

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I honestly can't follow up on this topic. Please do as instructed and no more. It's very confusing. There is a methodology in analyzing problems and the present state of affair messes up everything. I don't even understand if the first problem, the one with the A disk is solved or not. Please do as instructed by Admiral and report the situation briefly and accurately.